Making Words Lesson for Emergent / Early Readers

Step 1: Collect Lesson Materials

1. Gather materials. For this sample lesson, you will need the letters a, c, m, n, p, r, t. You will
need large letter cards or magnetic letters and small magnetic letters or letter tiles for the
students to use. You might also choose to use word boards with Elkonin boxes.
2. Pass out the word boards and letters, asking students to place the letters on the bottom of each
board quickly without playing with them.

Steps 2 & 3: Make Words and Coach

The teacher dictates each word, telling how many letters to use, and uses it in a sentence or
explains its meaning to provide context for each word. Here is a sample dialogue:

Teacher: Today we are going to make a lot of words with our letters. Well need to use our ears to listen
for sounds and well need our eyes to look for letters to match those sounds. Lets make sure you know
the letter names and sounds.

What is it? (Point to the first letter, a.) What sound does it make? /a/ like in apple (point to the
letter a on the alphabet chart). Continue to quickly name letters and sounds, using the alphabet chart as
a resource.

Ready? Lets make some words.

# 1, cap. The baseball player wears a cap on his head. Cap. Stretch it out, say it slowly: c-a-p
(running your finger under the boxes). What do you hear first? Put that letter in the first box. Say it
again: c-a-p What do you hear in the middle? Say it again and run your finger under the letters. What
do you hear at the end? Check it with your finger, does it look right?

As students finish, call on one student to make the word with the large letter cards in the pocket
chart. Everyone checks his or her answer by looking at the pocket chart.

Run your finger under the word and pull the sounds across to blend them into a word c-a-p.
Good! When we read words we dont say /c/ /c/ /c/-/a/ /a/ a/-/p/ /p/ /p/. That doesnt sound like a
word, does it?

#2. Now you will change one letter. Look at your word and see which one should be changed
before you move any letters.

Map. We used a map to find our way in the car. Map. Run your finger under the word where
do you hear the change? The teacher continues to coach individuals or the group as needed with
advice, such as: Say it slowly. What do you hear? Where do you hear it? What letter makes that
sound? (use the alphabet chart as a resource)

Now run your finger under and read.

 Invite a student volunteer to make the word in the pocket chart, using the large letters. The
teacher places the 3-by-5 inch word card beneath the first word, cap, before moving on to the next
word.

#3 Change one letter look to see whether the change is in the beginning, the middle, or the
end. Tap. Water from the faucet is called tap water. Tap. Invite a student to make the word in the
pocket chart.

#4 Change one letter listen for where you hear the change. Rap. Teenagers like rap music.
Rap.

#5 Change one letter be ready! Nap. The baby took a nap after lunch. Nap.

#6 Now, use the same letters to make a new word. Be careful; listen to each sound and then
look for the letter to match. Pan. The dinner was cooked in the pan. Pan.

#7 Change one letter to make a new word. Ran. The girl ran at recess. Ran.

#8 Change one letter: Tan. The color tan is a light brown. Tan.

#9 Change one letter: Can. Can you come to my house? Can.

#10 Change one letter: Man. The man delivered a pizza to our house. Man.

Many lessons include one or two challenge words to use when you feel your students are ready for
more complex words.

Step 4: Sort

Collect the letters and the word boards. Now the focus will be on sorting the 3-by-5 inch word
cards by rime patterns/word families.

Lets look at the words we have made in our pocket chart. Today we are going to find words that
have the same chunk the group of letters at the end of a word that look the same and sound the same.

Heres the word tap and the word map. Say them. What chunk is the same at the end of each
word? (Help students respond /ap/).

Good. Who can find another word with the same chunk at the end?

Today we have been helping our brain to figure out words it doesnt know. If we read a word we
dont know, our brain looks for a chunk at the end that it knows. So, if we can read map, then our brain
looks at cap and sees a part it knows - /ap/. This makes it easier for us to say, Yes! I got it! Cap.